


eyes invite eyes

by karnsteins



Category: The Outsiders - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Not beta'd we die like men, post-novel, the ship is implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:49:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26201425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karnsteins/pseuds/karnsteins
Summary: All at once it hits you: this guy has Dally's eyes.
Relationships: Ponyboy Curtis/Dallas Winston
Kudos: 23





	eyes invite eyes

All at once it hits you: this guy has Dally's eyes. 

It's been years. Certainly, last night, you weren't thinking about him when this guy had pressed up against you, hands wandering up your sides. You weren't thinking about him when you had first come to wakefulness in your bed, on the opposite of the guy. He doesn't resemble Dallas any other way; he's taller than he was, a bit bigger in places. Nothing about him was like Dallas, until now, until the light fell across the bed he looked at you in the sunlight, half awake, the light catching his eye in a way that makes your chest tight.

Before that, half awake, you were just thinking about calling Darry today, letting him know you were going to come see him soon. You were idly thinking that you wanted to get this guy's number again because you'd forgotten last night, like always. You're in your thirties, you escaped Tulsa for Chicago and you were not expecting this, to be startled by the way this guy's eyes are in the sunlight, to be confronted with those cold blue eyes.

It hits you like a wave. You are suddenly fourteen again, looking into Dallas Winston's eyes, reminded of all the things you never said to him. All the thoughts you had in the intervening decades come rushing back: wanting to ask him if he was happy he got what he wanted, if he ever considered the cost of being gunned down in front of boys who had cared for him, if maybe, maybe something could have ever combined him not to do it, if he felt gallant, crumpling beneath the street lamp. If he ever wanted something different, if he knew what it would be like to have that image seared within you, to always have it repeat over and over until you became used to it, until the nightmares stopped. If he knew how much you would miss him, if he knew that when you left Tulsa, you were running away from it, from him, from Johnny, from Soda.

It all comes rushing up in a near violent wave of emotion, of memories that you had sealed away from yourself, memories that had started to fade until moments like this.

For a moment you think you might choke on it all, might ask this stranger all of it at once. You feel like you might start bawling, but then the light shifts. 

His eyes aren't Dally's anymore. You shut your eyes and push it all back down. 

He asks: you okay?  
You say, voice unsteady: yeah, i'm fine. 

You'll deal with everything later, like always. Pull out what you wrote at fourteen, talk to Darry over the phone, as the sun sinks on the horizon, fourteen again.

**Author's Note:**

> don't mind me, just fucking around until i get something concrete.


End file.
